


free fall

by mercu



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Suicide Attempt, Tragedy, modern!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2020557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercu/pseuds/mercu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>free fall (n.)<br/>1. the state or condition of falling through the air toward the ground<br/>2. rapid uncontrolled decline</p><p>Modern AU. Two neglected children, one funeral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	free fall

The funeral is a quiet affair, with few attendants. The small amount of mourners is strange, for someone who used to be surrounded by admirers seemingly at every step, but Aang supposes it makes sense. For all their popularity, neither of the siblings had many actual _friends_.

He feels out of place in the small crowd; aside for Katara and Sokka and Toph, he barely knows anyone here. Yet, he doesn't regret coming. He knows Zuko would have wanted him here.

He looks away as the coffin is lowered to the ground, feels Katara squeeze his hand tightly.

“You know, I wonder. Maybe- maybe this wouldn't have happened if I'd just talked to Zuko more?” He whispers as tears start rolling down his cheeks. “Maybe I could have stopped them.”

“Aang- Aang, stop.” Katara sighs, enveloping him in a tight hug. “None of us saw this coming. None of us thought it could ever happen, okay?” Aang nods, still utterly miserable. “There was nothing you could have done.” She clings tighter to him and chokes off a sob. “ _There was nothing any of us could have done_.”

-

_Their father is absent during dinner, as usual. Zuko savagely stabs at his plate, stewing silently. Azula just rolls her eyes._

“ _I don't understand why you keep doing that.”_

“ _Doing_ what _.” He snaps, leveling her with a glare._

“ _I hope you realize that your anger issues stopped being funny a long time ago.” Zuko stays silent, refusing to take the bait this time, and in the end she just sighs. “Acting like a disappointed toddler every time father doesn't show up. You know he has more important things to worry about than Sunday dinner with his kids, Dumdum.”_

“ _We should be more important than that.” Zuko mumbles, as quietly as he can, but Azula catches it anyway._

“ _It's just dinner, Zuko. Stop making such a big deal out of this.”_

 _Something inside him_ snaps _at that, and he stands up, his chair falling over with a bang. “It's not JUST dinner!” He hisses viciously. “You really don't mind that- that he_ ignores _us all the damn time?”_

_Azula examines her nails, looking bored. “You've been talking to that Aang kid again, haven't you.” Zuko opens his mouth to snap back, but she refuses to give any ground and just rolls right over him. “Give this up, Zuzu. You have nothing to complain about. Father cares about us. We have everything we ask for, do we not?”_

_He doesn't know how to respond to that and for a moment, all he can do is glare. After a few seconds of silence, he slams his fists into the table and leaves._

-

Ursa is weeping uncontrollably, clutching tightly at Iroh's sleeves. “My baby, my beautiful baby.” She sobs, over and over. “I should have loved them more. I should have loved them more.”

Iroh simply rubs her back soothingly as he cries silent tears. He doesn't trust himself to speak.

-

_Azula comes into his room late in the evening the next day. Zuko immediately scowls at her and she raises her hand in a placating gesture._

“ _You know, I've been thinking about what you said.”_

_He peers at her suspiciously, but nods his head in encouragement. “Yeah?”_

“ _And I couldn't help but wonder... You're so angry at father, but what about mom? She barely ever visits anymore.”_

“ _You know that she lives too far away for that.” He mumbles, but his forehead creases in a frown. He loves his mother, he does, and he knows that she loves him, but he does wish she would contact them more often._

“ _But why did she move in the first place?” Azula moves towards him and he automatically scoots over to make space for her on the bed. She immediately flops over and sprawls next to him._

“ _Because she met a new guy.”_

“ _He could have moved to her.” Azula shakes her head. “She moved because she didn't want to see me anymore.”_

-

Mai used to think she knew them pretty well. Or that she knew Zuko pretty well, at least. Azula was always the more unpredictable one. Still, even with her, Mai could usually tell what she was thinking.

But today, as she stares wordlessly at the tombstone, Zuko's suicide note clutched tightly in her hand and Ty Lee crying on her shoulder, she realizes that perhaps she didn't know them at all.

-

“ _You didn't come here just to talk about your feelings, did you.” It's not a question, it's a fact. Azula doesn't talk about her feeling, period. She has to have an ulterior motive._

“ _Come now, Zuzu, can't a brother and sister have a heart to heart every now and then?” She chimes and giggles, not even making an attempt to make it sound believable. Zuko crosses his arms, unimpressed. “Oh, fine. Be that way.” She sighs. “No, of course I didn't come to talk about my feelings.” She grins, in that creepy way of hers and Zuko swallows. Despite being two years his junior, Azula always scared him. “I know how to get both mother_ and _father to pay attention. And it wouldn't even be very hard.”_

-

Ozai makes only a cursory appearance. He's gone before they finish burying the coffin.

-

“ _I don't... I don't want to_ die _.” Zuko whispers, horrified. Azula's ideas were always rather –_ extreme _, but this is a whole new level. “And what would even be the point?” He adds as an afterthought. “What good would the attention do us when we're_ dead _?”_

 _Azula tsks and shakes her head at him. “We wouldn't be doing it for_ real _, Zuzu.” She huffs. “It's not high enough for us to actually kill ourselves, if you know how to land. It's not that hard.” She grins, sharp and vicious. “And stop pretending that you haven't thought about it – I've read your sad, sad poems. It's not like your blog is hard to find, Dumdum.”_

_For a moment, Zuko is speechless. “I never- I just-” He stutters. It's true, he had considered it, but never seriously. He's still trying to gather his wits enough to form a response when Azula starts laughing._

“ _Okay, silly, I get you. You were just_ expressing _yourself.” She snorts, as if what she said is very amusing. “But at least consider this, okay? I know it_ will _work.”_

_She gets up, about to leave. Zuko remains silent until she's almost past the door._

“ _How long have_ you _been thinking about this?” He asks quietly. Azula pauses, grits her teeth._

“ _A while.”_

-

Only Lo attends the funeral. Li remains in the hospital, keeping watch over the still, broken – but still warm and breathing – form of their remaining charge.

-

“ _I can't do this.” Zuko says softly, staring down at the pavement, and Azula slaps him, hard, somehow without loosing her balance._

“ _You say that_ now _?” She hisses in annoyance. “Why do you have to be such a coward, Zuzu? It'll get you what you've always wanted. All you have to do is jump, and then land the way I taught you. It'll be okay.”_

_But Zuko shakes his head. “No. No, okay? This- This is too much.” He swallows, and starts withdrawing._

_Azula's face screws up in anger, in the same way their father's does, sometimes. “_ NO! _” She howls, clamping a hand around his wrist in an iron grip. “It's too late to back down now!” She practically spits in his face. “You_ will _jump, and you can either do it right-”_

“ _Azula,_ please _-” He begs her, but she's not listening. She tugs at his hand, hard, and he sways, almost loosing his balance._

“ _-or you can DIE.”_

_But Zuko doesn't want to do either of these things, and he tries to tug his hand free in panic, to sway back off the rail and onto the balcony. But Azula is unrelenting, and it's only a matter of time._

_In the end, it's Azula whose foot slips, it's Azula who pulls them off the edge._

_They fall together._

-

Five days after Azula's funeral, Zuko opens his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a thing i wrote to help myself deal with certain feelings.  
> 


End file.
